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Easter Changes... Racial Divides March 29, 2017

Throughout history, racial differences have created tension, division and chaos. While pseudo-Christians have either been complicit in the problems or have stood by while injustices occurred, Gospel Christians know that the Easter Story changes any preconception of the reality of racial stress.

The Easter Story:

A Jewish, middle-eastern man was sentenced to the death penalty for a crime he did not commit. The religious elite killed him because he was a threat to the establishment. They did not know, or didn’t understand that this man was God in the flesh. He modeled the life God intended. And in that modeling, he destroyed any notion, even a hint, that racial differences mattered. He treated all men and women equal. In a day where women were second-class citizens, they were equal in his eyes. In a day where racial and cultural division was rampant, he called the minority – the dreaded, unclean, hated minority to be heroes in his stories.

He was clear. If you are created, then you are loved by God. And if anyone is created by God, then they are to be loved by God’s people.

When he announced his ministry, he said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Jesus was a social activists and a champion of racial equality.

The Easter Story is the story of revival and renewal. It is the story of this man, put to death. But three days later, he defied death to live again. That can’t be unless he’s God. He died to set right the wrongs of the world. He died for the sin of racism. And he lives to see the plan of God carried out.

If you understand the Gospel story, then you understand that every person has been created by God.

There is no division and no difference. Christians are not called to be color-blind. Christians are called to see the beauty in all color. Just as we are amazed by a beautiful sunset of blues, oranges and purples woven together to create a masterpiece, or by a field of wild flowers in all their colorful splendor, we see skin color as a beautiful reminder of God as artist extraordinaire. From the whitest of all whites, to the darkest of all blacks, everyone in between was created by God as a unique, loved, precious creation woven and shaped and designed to perfection.

We just have to get over ourselves.

The Easter Story means you are wholly loved by a God who wants you to love him back. You don’t have to continue the charade that you are better than someone else, nor the fear that you’re not. You are wholly and completely loved by a God who cheers racial differences because He made us all. If the Easter Story could only invade our world, racial tension would cease to exist. But because many refuse to believe in a God who models, teaches and insists on equality, we who believe must continue to be the examples.

Gospel Christians should be leading the way for racial peace, because our Lord is the Prince of Peace!